Dragon Hearted
by konigen
Summary: Leonard had never wanted anything other than to be a Healer - Jim had never wanted to be a Harper. Fate seemed to conspire against them, but luckily for them both, the dragons were more than willing to step in. (L'nard centric)
1. Healer Green, Dragon Blue

Leonard stumbles down the road out of Bitra Hold, all of his meager possessions stuffed in a rucksack that he clutches to his chest, his mind blank with shock.

iBanished/i. And for what? The crime of loving a fickle bitch, Leonard thought bitterly. She finished with him and decided she didn't want him hanging around the Hold anymore, and she…he feels sick thinking about it. Forcing yourself on someone was a high crime on Pern, and while her accusation couldn't be proved, Jocelyn's father, the Lord Holder, had given him the greatest punishment he could without there being proof. Banishment, instead of being staked out during a Threadfall.

He shakes his head and his Journeyman Healer's knot, complete with a small emerald, clinks against the buckle of his rucksack. By now, Bitra's Lord Holder would have sent his fire lizard around to the other Holds, and he won't be able to get a position as a Healer anywhere. Abruptly he feels sick, and stumbles to the side of the road to empty his stomach. When his heaves finally stop, he raises a shaking hand to wipe his mouth.

This isn't how he imagined his life going.

Everything shadows suddenly, reflexively he looks up to see a brown dragon circling above him. He feels a flash of fear, wondering if word had reached the Weyr of the accusation laid against him, wondering if the Dragonrider was there to take him iBetween/i, permanently. The dragon circles one more time and then lands, settling its considerable bulk down on the sands with a grunt, less than a dragonlength from him. The brown stretches out his neck and snorts, his breath making Leonard's clothes flap against his rangy, muscled frame. The clothes are old and don't fit him well; hand me downs, because the clothes that the Bitran's had outfitted him in had been stripped from him along with everything else. The dragon snorts again and raises his head, turning back toward his rider, who slaps the side of his dragon's neck and then slides out of his riding harness.

"Tupelith told my Gareth that you've been falsely accused and banished from Bitra Hold," the rider says, leaning against his dragon.

"Tupelith?" Leonard says, blankly. The Dragonrider didn't think he was guilty? He felt a wash of relief. At least someone did.

"The dragon posted at the Healer Hall," the rider says in explanation. "We could use a Healer at the Weyr, if you're interested. There's a chance of an egg in it for you."

For the third time that day, Leonard feels his mind go static. A position in a Weyr? A chance at an egg…he thought for a moment. The only Clutch he knew of was at Benden Weyr, which was by far regarded as the best Weyr. He knows people who would give an arm and a leg for a chance to Impress a Benden Hatchling.

"I would- That is-," he stumbles over his words.

The man grimaces in sympathy, walks over to place a hand on Leonard's shoulder and looks him in the eyes. "Just nod or shake," he said, and Leonard nods. The rider gives his shoulder a squeeze and then let's go to clap him on the shoulder lightly. "Come on, then."

Leonard lets himself be lead, gently, to the brown, iGareth/i. The rider, whose name he still hasn't caught, nondescript in his flying leathers, boosts him up onto his dragon and buckles the straps on the harness that would prevent him from falling. Gareth shakes out his wings as his rider climbs up behind their passenger and straps himself in, and then takes off when his rider gives him a silent signal.

He launches himself up, wings beating powerfully, and then hovers, barely moving, as his rider leans forward and says, with his mouth right next to Leonard's ear "We're going to go iBetween/i. It's a bit startling the first time you experience it, but just try to relax, and it will be over in about the same time as it takes to cough three times."

Leonard nods, and the rider leaned back and says "To Benden Weyr, Gareth."

And then they were iBetween/i.

It was worse than all the stories and Ballads he's heard about it. It's a total absence of everything; air, sound, and the feeling of the dragon beneath him, of ieverything/i all gone. He takes panicked breathes of air that isn't there, feeling light headed. He thinks he would go insane if he had to experience the loss of everything except a sense of 'self' for any length of time. They aren't iBetween/i long, he knows it, in his head, but when they come out to bright sunshine, he takes deep gasping breaths, unable to drag enough air in his lungs.

"That was ihorrible/i," he mutters, but the rider hears him anyway, and laughs.

"You get used to it," he says, and Leonard shudders.

"I don't iwant/i to get used to it," he snaps.

"You'll need too," the rider says cryptically. Leonard just shakes his head and clenches his eyes shut, because he iknows/i that he won't fall but that doesn't really stop the nagging feeling that he's much too far away from solid ground. A jarring sensation that causes him to jerk forward heralds their landing, and he opens his eyes to take in his first view of Benden Weyr.

It's ibeautiful/i.

The dragonrider laughs, and unbuckles the straps holding Leonard into the riding harness. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he asks, and Leonard can only nod.

Leonard slides gracelessly from the brown's back when his rider finishes unbuckling him. He stumbles a little, before catching his balance and turning back to the dragon.

"Thank you, Gareth," he says, sketching a short bow to the brown, who turns his head and blows gently in his direction.

iYou're welcome, Healer./i he hears in his mind, and he starts. He bows again to Gareth, deeper this time.

"He likes you," the dragon's rider says, sliding from his dragon's back, "I'm M'chell, by the way," he says.

"Thank you, M'chell," he says, and for what he doesn't really know, but the rider seems to know what he means.

M'chell nods at him, then snaps his head around at the same time his dragon does.

"And just in time, too," he says, and Leonard is really beginning to hate the way he speaks in riddles.

"Come on, back up," M'chell says, hustling Leonard back onto Gareth and taking off quickly. They wink in and out of between again, and then glide down into what is the ancient remains of a volcano, a perfect bowl in the heart of the mountain, the Weyr. The air is full of dragons of every color, and Leonard isn't sure how the blues, brows, greens, and bronzes aren't colliding in midair.

Gareth back wings to land lightly on the sands in the bowl, and Leonard starts when M'chell starts unbuckling him from the harness again.

"What-" Leonard starts, but M'chell cuts him off.

"They're hatching," he says, and Leonard is reminded of what the dragonrider told him not a moment after they first met 'iThere's a chance of an egg in it for you/i'.

This is a Hatching.

He doesn't protest being unclipped and dropped unceremoniously onto the hot sands, though his ill fitting shoes don't protect him from the heat. He ignores it – Tillek Hold was his birth home so he was used to heat. There are a group of males, no more than boys really, waiting in a group new the edge of the eggs. A few are rocking gently, and a semi-circle of girls is spread out on the opposite side of the Hatching Grounds as the boys, around a glowing golden egg.

He makes his way over to the boys, gives them a nod when they look at him nervously. The dragons, crouched above them on ledges around the edges of the sands, are humming, a counterpoint to his pounding heart. The humming picks up in tempo, getting faster and louder – and then one of the eggs cracks.

The wet head of the first hatched dragonet pokes through the hard shell that it had lain in, and Leonard can see from here it's a blue. A sigh goes through the humming dragons, and the sound seems to encourage him, because he shakes inside his egg, causing the remainder to crack and fall in shards around him. It flops onto the hot sands, and Leonard finds himself encouraging it to get up under his breath, without really thinking about it.

The dragonet does, and shakes himself again, before turning his head and looking around. When the blue sees the boys gathered near the edge of the eggs, he makes his way toward them. Leonard is conscious of other dragon's hatching, but the blue has his attention.

The blue stops in front of him and croons, his eyes whirling blue and green.

iMy name is Atlanth/i, the blue says inside his mind, and Leonard feels himself fall into the whirling, faceted eyes, feels his heart fill up with love, and knows that he will never be alone again.


	2. Harper Blue, Dragon Green

L'nard _hates_ search. It's repetitive and boring and every time he explains what he's here for he gets young girls throwing themselves at him, like him liking them with make a difference. It's like they're willfully ignoring the fact that it's Atlanth that figures out if they're suitable or not.

Crafthalls are even worse than Holds – it's mostly second sons and girls parents can't care for properly there, and a lot of them are looking for any excuse to get away. He'd pulled the Fort rotation – these days the Weyrs didn't bother with the ridiculous territory disputes that the Holders had grown so fond of – there were rarely two Weyrs Clutching at the same time, anyway, with Thread safely gone a good three turns.

L'nard had never gotten on with Harpers, and the Healer Hall was nothing but bad memories now, with the way they'd abandoned him to Bitra's mercy. No mind that all his teachers knew he would never have forced himself on anyone – his little sister had attracted a bad sort during her first bloom of adulthood, and she hadn't been the same since. L'nard would sooner _die_, but no one took that into account.

Atlanth chuffs from beneath him, a comforting sound that banishes the bad memories before they can grip him tight and pull him down into the past. As much as he hates his Banishment, he wouldn't give Atlanth up for anything.

_Last one, dearheart,_ Atlanth says soothingly.

_Good thing too, if I had had to deal with this too much longer, I would have sent you _Between_ without coordinates._

Atlanth chuffs again, this time in laughter. He knows L'nard is joking – how can he not, when he's inside L'nard's mind, closer to him than L'nard's own heart?

_Sense anything?_ L'nard asks, directing Atlanth down to the Harper Hall. Fort's Holder spent a good bit of his time there, so it wouldn't be thought an insult that L'nard stopped there first.

_Yes,_ Atlanth sent back, _Male, though._

L'nard gives a mental shrug.

_Not like anyone expected me to bring back a Queen Rider anyway._

After exchanging greetings with the Master Harper and Fort's Lord, L'nard asks for and is given permission to wander around. L'nard had never really like the Harper Hall – he was tone deaf, and the drunken ramblings of his older siblings and the crisp tones of a Harper singing a ballad sounded much the same to him. The Harpers always seemed to take this as a personal insult.

It takes a good hour and uncountable proposals from pretty girls for him to find the one Atlanth sensed. And when he did, he wished he hadn't.

The man, although to L'nard he still looked a bit like a boy, despite the scars on his face that clearly came from spots, was drunk. Drunk and bruised and picking a fight with several Holder folk, which wasn't exactly what one wanted in a dragonrider. Sighing, because Atlanth was insistent, he resigned himself to breaking it up and taking the culprit aside for a chat about his life choices.

L'nard _hates_ Search.

L'nard lets out a long whistle, two fingers in his mouth, to get everyone's attention.

"Break it up," L'nard tells them when he has it, grabbing the drunk potential rider and hauling him back. Grumbling, the Holder folk wander off, and L'nard gains the knowledge that the man-boy is named Jim in the bargain.

"You whistle really loud," Jim says, swaying on his feet, L'nard's hand fisted in his blue tunic apparently the only thing keeping him upright. L'nard scowls.

"I am seriously reconsidering my dragon's intelligence," L'nard tells him. Jim blinks and at the same time there is a loud bugle of protest from the cliffs where Atlanth is perched.

Jim seems to take in his appearance for the first time, jerking himself from L'nard's grip and his body language going from 'drunken fool' to 'Holder', and it's L'nard's turn to blink.

"I'm sorry for any inconvenience I've caused you, Rider," Jim says, sketching a short bow.

L'nard blinks again, because he recognizes that accent as Ruathan, and if he recalls correctly, the Lady Holder's second son went by the name Jim. L'nard takes a closer look at him.

Blond haired and blue eyed, he was a spitting image for the old Lord Holder of Ruatha, a man named George who had died fighting off a greedy Holdless by the name of Kodos who had thought to take Ruatha by force and set himself up as her Lord. It hadn't ended well for him, even if Ruatha had lost its Lord. By all counts, when the other Lord Holders had started making noise about replacing George's widow Winona as Holder, the entirety of Ruatha had taken up arms over the issue. It had been dropped rather quickly after that.

"I take it you've seen that ridiculous picture of my father that hangs up in the Hall," Jim's voice cuts through his musing, bringing him back to the present and the man in front of him. "I've always hated that damn thing."

Considering for a few moments, L'nard nods. "I've never been very fond of it myself. I mean, what sort of man rides a watch-wheyr into battle? Someone clearly has someone explaining to do."

Jim breaks out into a smile that transforms his features from handsome to breathtaking. No one should have a smile that bright, in L'nard's opinion. It's not fair to everyone else.

"Being from Ruatha explains why my dragon thinks you're suitable," L'nard muses, keeping an eye on Jim's reaction. If the start the man gives is anything to go by, he hadn't put the pieces together yet.

"Well you know what they say," Jim counters, eyes wary, "If you throw a rock in Ruatha – "

" – You'll hit someone descended from a dragonrider. I always wondered about that."

Jim shrugs, and his grin turns sheepish. "What can I say? We've got the best parties."

"I'll bet you do," L'nard drawls, raising an eyebrow. "So good that you can't bear to be sober for long, you miss them so much, huh?"

Jim winces. He doesn't look like he's going to explain, and L'nard isn't going to ask. Far as he's concerned, it isn't his problem. His only job is to find out if Jim is willing to come back to Benden.

"My dragon thinks you've got the potential to be a rider, and I've learned not to argue with him. Are you willing to Stand on the sands at the upcoming Hatching?"

Jim looks startled, a 'Who, me?' expression on his face, and ya, L'nard can understand that. To this day, he still can't understand why Atlanth picked him. His favored theory is that the Queen laid his dragon's egg upside down.

"It'd get you away from here," L'nard offered. They keep sending him onSearch because Atlanth is very good at picking people out for eggs, which apparently is enough to offset how horrible L'nard is at talking to people. Then again, most people jump at the chance to become riders, even with Thread gone.

"If you'd rather not…" L'nard trails off when Jim shakes his head.

"No, I'll go. Just…let me get my things?"

"No booze," L'nard says, and Jim rolls his eyes.

"What are you, my doctor?" he snarks, and L'nard grins.

"Used to be. These days the most work I get is settin' bones."

"Bones, huh?" Jim gives him a look over, head to toe and back, and his grin turns filthy. "Suits you."

With a 'Gimmie five minutes,' tossed flippantly over his shoulder, Jim slips off, presumably to collect his things from his room.

Five minutes later, L'nard is scowling, leaning on his dragon's shoulder when Jim jogs up.

"I'm rethinking my opinion that you're worth the trouble," L'nard informs him, although he doesn't really mean it. Atlanth had been rather insistent when the Master Harper had tried to argue that L'nard didn't have the authority to take Jim. A dragon landing not two meters away from you and _hissing_ ends all arguments, which the Master Harper and Lord Holder had found out.

"Aw, Bones, you don't mean that," Jim says, smug grin in place and a leather rucksack over his shoulder. When L'nard just raises an eyebrow at him again, Jim's grin morphs into something more like a smile and he continues. "I could hear the hissing from my room."

L'nard snorts and gestures to Atlanth's riding harness. "Hurry up, before I change my mind."

It isn't Jim's first trip _Between_, so he handles the transition well, better than the others L'nard had collected. It's about a week still to go before the Hatching, so L'nard sets him up in one of the ground floor Weyrs and then puts Jim out of his mind. L'nard likes him – Jim is intelligent and witty and reminds L'nard bittersweet of the way his youngest sister used to act – but there isn't any point in getting attached until after the Hatching and he knows for sure that Jim isn't going to be dropped back off at the Harper Hall with a 'Sorry, better luck next time.'

He runs into him once or twice during meals, but he's currently arguing with the Weyrleader about how no, he _shouldn't_ be made Weyrling Master, at all, and he can't really spare anything beyond a grunt of greeting. Jim takes it in stride and doesn't push the issue, which L'nard is grateful for.

Dragons being the infernal, contrary beings that they are, the Hatching takes place just as dawn breaks a six days later, rousing riders from their beds. It goes well, from what L'nard can tell from his view in the stands, leaning heavily on Atlanth, although he couldn't pick out the individuals who Impressed from the faces he knows from Search to save his life. He can deal with it after he's had breakfast.

It deals with him instead, half-way through his meal, in the form of a tiny green dragonet running up to his table and hiding behind his legs. L'nard is used to it – they haven't had a Weyrling Master since before the Hatching before last – everyone had made due with temporary teachers trading off the position until they could find and train someone up for it. So far, everyone had fallen through, and A'cher was getting a bit miffed about it. L'nard pitted the poor soul he next set his sights on, although he was grateful that A'cher had finally given up on trying to convince L'nard to do it. Word was he'd been talking to Una, the second Queen Rider, about P'ke taking the position.

"Tarsath, get back here," comes not long on the heels of L'nard being used as a hiding spot, and he looked up to see a harried looking Jim striding over.

_Told you,_ Atlanth comments smugly.

"Sorry 'bout that," Jim says, having extracted his green from L'nard's legs and the table. "She decided that Soreth's food looked tastier than hers and took exception to the fact that I wouldn't let her steal it."

"Don't worry about it," L'nard says dismissively. "Nothing that hasn't happened before."

Tarsath wiggles in Jim's arms and gives a soft croon, eyes on L'nard's plate. L'nard scowls and tugs it closer.

"Cooked food is bad for you," L'nard informs the baby green, who croons at him again, sounding disappointed. L'nard finds himself wavering for a split second before Jim comes to his rescue.

"I think Soreth took the opportunity to steal your food," Jim tells her, and she wiggles down out of his arms and runs back to her food, which Soreth had _not_ been stealing. L'nard can tell the moment she realizes this, because Jim chuckles.

"She's going to be a handful," L'nard comments with a nod toward Tarsath, who is once again buried neck deep in a bucket of meat, one of the older riders keeping an eye on her until Jim gets back.

"Nothing I can't handle," Jim says, head cocked to the side and a soft smile on his face.

L'nard amends his thought to include Jim in the assessment of who is going to be a handful, but for the life of him, he can't seem to mind.


End file.
